Belief
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: Laxus doesn't...understand, exactly, what it is that Mirajane believes in. Or why she believes in it. And, for some reason, this bothers him beyond belief. - One-shot, Miraxus Week Day Five: Faith.


Laxus and Mirajane had been hooking up for a good four months, randomly, before they went on their first date. They'd be dating for a good solid six months before either admitted that they wished to be exclusive. And it would be a two more years before he popped the question.

But somewhere between those two years, Laxus and Mira went through, of course, a period of learning much about one another. He slowly divulged to her all the twisted shit that his father did to him, as well as many of his rather peculiar distastes.

Like apples.

"Who," Mira grumbled as he pushed away the pie she'd baked for his arrival following an S-Class job, "doesn't like apple pie?"

"I don't like apples."

"In general?"

"At all. I mean, yeah, sure, it smells good and it probably would taste good to someone who likes them, but-"

"Who doesn't like apples?"

"I also don't like grape flavored things."

She only stared. "So you don't like apples or grapes?"

"Is that what I said?" Holding his head higher, he said, "I said I don't like grape flavored things. But grapes? Real grapes? Those are great."

"You're impossible."

"I'm deep. There's a difference."

Oh, he was. But…

His taste in fruits weren't.

Just odd.

Laxus, at first, felt much the same about one of Mira's revelations. That it was just odd and nothing more.

"You?" he asked incredulously one morning as she slunk out of his apartment before the sun was up. Which wouldn't be too weird, had it not been a Sunday, when the bar opened two hours later than usual, as well as if he didn't know that it was typically Kinana that opened the place on the weekend in those days and, if not her, then certainly Lisanna. Just not the eldest Strauss. Those two extra hours were what she considered her off days. Yeah, the woman was crazy. "You go to...Sunday service?"

"Church?" Mira corrected as she full on just transformed into another outfit, a less low cut dress than the one that she typically wore. "Yes, I'm going to church."

"But...why?"

"Well, most people go because they enjoy it, Lax."

"I'm not talking about most people," he grumbled as he sat up in bed, watching her as she headed into his bathroom to freshen up, though she left the door open. "I'm talking about you."

"What? Am I some sort of satanist or something? Not allowed to breach the opening of somewhere sacred?"

"Yes!" He felt a bit delirious, honestly, from the lack of sleep he'd gotten the night before (he didn't even know how Mira was managing to get up so early, much less head out already) and ran a hand through his yellow locks in an attempt to clear his mind. IT did nothing, other than look stereotypical for someone that had had a bender the night before.

Oh, yeah, he had gotten wasted the night before.

It helped when your grandfather owned the joint and girlfriend was serving you with the propensity to overly do so to everyone.

"Excuse me?" Mira looked back over at him from the tiny adjoining bathroom. "Laxus?"

She seemed to be washing her face off. Which any other time would have made him question just what her transformations could and couldn't do and when she chose to do and not do just what it had the ability to, but at the moment he wasn't feeling too well.

"I don't mean you, like, hold seances or occult parties to worship your dark overlord-"

"I'd hope you didn't. I mean, no judgment if you're into that sort of thing-"

"Why are offended that you thought I thought you did? But you just toss out at me that I might?"

"Because you were so calm about thinking I did-"

"I don't! I just meant… Don't you have...Satan inside of you?"

And she laughed at him. Rather loudly. Laxus, who wasn't good with being ridiculed, about threw her out. If she was any other woman, he certainly would have.

But…

"What?" he growled angrily at the sound. "What? Huh? Why are you laughing? What did I-"

"I mean, Lax, are you serious?" She actually left the bathroom then, to stare at him. "You think that I have the actual fallen angel Satan inside of me?"

"Well, I don't know. I-"

"I mean, people think I'm dumb-"

"You're not dumb, Mira." He could be as pissed at her as he wanted; he would never let anyone insult the woman, not even her. "At all."

"Oh, I know," she replied. "I said that people think I am."

"Well- And hey! What then? Are you calling me dumb?" When she didn't answer, he repeated, "Are you?"

"Of course not."

"Then-"

"But you thought that I was...Lucifer? And still slept with me?"

"Well...yeah. So?"

"That would be like me honestly think that you're Raijin, incarnated. Or that Erza is legitimately Titania."

He scratched his head. "I'm...hungover. I don't know what I'm saying."

"Yes, you do. Or did. You really thought that. You-"

"Then what do you have in you?"

"I have a...bad spirit that can be construed as a demon, yes. But it's not actually Satan, no. It's just something that people call it. A nickname." Then she made a face. "Come on, tell me you were joking."

Instead of answering that, he nly said, "It still stands though. You have...demon in you. What good is going to church? You can't save your soul; if you believe in God, then you're already damned."

"I'm damned for saving a bunch of lifes?"

"Well, I don't..."

'You don't know. So you shouldn't say that."

"Mira-"

"I'm not...evil, Laxus."

"I know." His tone had become soft. "Of course I know that."

" _I_ control what's inside of me. The...demon. Satan Soul. It doesn't control me." She even shook her head. "It's better off inside of me than possessing someone else, who can't contain it, isn't it?"

"I...I guess."

"Good. Well, now that that's over-"

"You still haven't told me why you- Mira."

She'd come over to kiss his cheek. Against it, she said, "I'm already late. I'll see you up at the hall, huh?"

And what could he do other than nod dumbly?

Huh?

What?

It continued to bother him though. Because Laxus saw it as really...weird, that Mirajane, of all people, would attend a church.

And regularly at that.

So, in very roundabout ways, he questioned her on it.

"It's not...weird to you?" he asked more than once. "You know...going to church? Or...worshiping? I mean, what do you guys do in there?"

"Laxus, have you never been to a church."

"Well, when I was a boy, sure, but-"

"It's really not that big of a deal."

But it was to him.

On another occasion, he tried a different approach.

"So, like, it's kind of just a joke to you. Right?"

"Laxus-"

"I'm just asking."

"Well," she said one morning as she got ready, at her place, where he'd stayed the night, "I wish you'd stop asking. If you're just going to be rude about it."

"I'm not being rude. I'm curious. Shouldn't I get to know just where my girlfriend is heading off to nearly weekly?"

"I don't go every Sunday."

"You go enough Sundays to get my curiosity going."

She gave him a look as she stood over at her dresser, to where he was relaxing on the bed, as if he had no plans of getting up any time soon.

And, honestly, he did not.

"I just like going, Laxus. It's not that serious, is it?" She was turning things around on him. He could just feel it. "I mean, does it bother you?"

"No! Of course not. I… It's your deal. Whatever to me."

"Well, it's not a joke to me." She was back to staring in the mirror that hung over her dresser, but her eyes were on him in it. "Alright?"

"Alright. I mean… My mother was religious. If that helps. I guess. I mean, she made me wear a little suit and go, sometimes. When Ivan wasn't being an ass about it."

"And while that sounds vvery cute and I'm gonna ask Master if he knows where any pictures of this suited, little Laxus are-"

"Mira, no."

"-I have to go."

And he left it alone for a bit. Rather, he left for a bit. On a job. Unrelated, but having a real girlfriend that you actually cared for and wanted to spend all the jewels you made on, as to hand over the world at her feet, well, it was actually a bit expensive, believe it or not.

When he returned a few weeks later, it was on a Monday and Laxus weaseled Mira into taking some time off, real time off, so that they could go away for a weekend. It was the first time that they had done this and was, honestly, pretty damn cool. Just being with Mira constantly. A week away broke most relationships Laxus had attempted it in (admittedly, it wasn't many), but he and Mirajane just connected on a new level during it.

She was hot and he was hot, so it wasn't too shocking to hear that they both found one another attractive, but in all honesty, it was more than just that, when it was the two of them. And getting a week together was good at highlighting that.

Laxus thought Mirajane was funny. Silly, fine, but also secretly really witty. She wasn't...outwardly so. She didn't ooze it. But when they'd just sit around and discuss the goings on in the hall (she made him), she could get really brutal with her analysis of the people she always gave that bright smile to in their face. Not in a two faced way, but more that when it was just he and her, Laxus and Mirajane, they didn't have to be the dick grandson hellbent on running the place or the ditzy bartender that was loyal to a fault to the owner.

No.

They could laugh at how silly most the arguments between members were. How clueless others could be about how someone else felt about them. The way they both believed certain members had been overlooked and it resulted in them never reaching their full potential.

Both had spent so long in the hall, Mira and Laxus, and both in very different ways. Him since he was born, watching those that came and went during the poor times and those that gave their whole life to the marking they elected to put on their chest, judging them all every step of the way. Mira, on the other hand, got the knowledge that only someone who served to drunks with tragic pasts could obtain, her airhead personality and lightheartedness towards friendships. They both knew different sides of people and it was always interesting to piece the two together.

There were many other things that they could enjoy together as well. Mira loved playing her guitar and Laxus loved hearing her play. He thought the world of himself and his stories while Mira enjoyed both him and his self inflating stories. She liked trying on new outfits, he liked looking at her in different outfits. He liked working out until his limits were reached, she enjoyed pushing him to said limits.

It was just...refreshing, really, to be getting more serious without feeling suffocated. Laxus wasn't, like, planning his life around the woman or anything, but he was seeing them together more and more often for longer and longer.

Their week away together ended on Saturday and, annoyingly, she was up Sunday morning for her stupid church service.

"So you don't see anything odd," he asked as she got ready that morning, "about getting your brains fucked out by some random guy the night before and then going into the chapel the next day and pretending that it didn't happen? Nothing at all?"

"Last time I checked," she said, mostly distracted by getting her makeup on while Laxus stood over at the toilet, having just relieved himself. Yeah, they were that serious, that open, that quickly. He pissed in front of her.

They were real.

"You're not a random, Lax," Mira finished. "Are you?"

"I might as well be. We aren't married, are we?"

"And I'm not...hiding it," she said with a slight frown. "Or you. Or whatever. Yes, I have premarital sex. Yes, I enjoy it. Yes, I know it's sinful. No, I don't feel like it's going to damn me to hell or that I should have to hide that I'm doing it. Were there anymore questions?"

There shouldn't have been. He should have realized he was being annoying and boarding on offensive. Nothing that Mira believed, really, was any of his business at that point. They weren't living together, they didn't have a child with one another, and she had never tried to push anything she thought onto him.

So...why did it bug him so much?

And why the hell did it lead him to ask,

"I mean, don't you ever feel like a bit of a hypocrite?"

As the words tumbled out, he knew they were wrong. Hell, he'd probably know they were wrong while they were still floating about in his head.

But that's what Laxus did though. He asked the hard hitting questions. The rude, unnecessary, meant to make you feel like shit about yourself questions.

The kind of questions that got his girlfriend to storm out of his apartment and got him left all alone.

At first, of course, Laxus went through that period where he thought of only himself as right and that Mira was just being a stupid woman and that she was a hypocrite. That's why she ran off. Why she got mad at him. Because he was right and she was wrong.

Typically, this stage could get Laxus through a week, at least, if not a month.

Years, back in the day with Makarov.

For some reason, however, this lasted all of six hours for the slayer that day and, when that was up, he was very concerned with making sure his relationship hadn't just come to an end by his own volition.

So he went to the bar. He'd done this before, honestly. Argued with Mira. Had to make up. All it took was a little bouquet of purple lilies and white roses as well as some chocolate or a big bone for her stupid mutt.

Trivial things.

Because Mira's anger was typically trivial and fleeting.

"I don't want these," Mira said, turning her nose up to the box of chocolates and bouquet that the slayer arrived at the hall with. "And if you don't have an order to place, please leave."

Typically, when a woman was getting mouthy or annoying or talking about a pregnancy scare (that did happen once and, thankfully, was just that; a scare), Laxus would go to the Thunder Legion to bitch about it.

With Bickslow, he'd go to have a good time. Get wasted and forget his troubles.

With Evergreen, he'd get an insight into the female mentality. Which he'd typically blow off later and then just break things off with the woman.

With Freed, he'd actually talk about what was actually going on in his head and get honest advice from one of the only people he trusted to give him so good amount of it.

But, with Mirajane, those three went out the window. Because Laxus had an inside factor who not only wanted to keep he and Mirajane together at all costs, but also just liked getting to hang out with the guy in general.

"I don't know why she didn't like these chocolates, Laxus. They're great."

"I didn't say," he grumbled as Lisanna dug right in, much to the shock of the other woman she'd been with when Laxus approached them, "you could eat them."

"But you didn't say I couldn't either, now did you?"

Heh.

He'd found her and Lucy outside the guildhall, both heading somewhere for the day, Natsu and Happy-less, thankfully, as the pair were out on some solo job for some reason or something. Laxus didn't care. He was just glad they weren't around.

When he approached them and explained his situation be grudgingly to Lisanna while Lucy mostly hung back, slightly fearful over the man regardless of how much time past or Mira's insistence that he was fine, perfectly fine, great guy, the youngest Strauss only snatched up the chocolates, foolishly believing for some reason that it was the taste of them that turned Mirajane away.

Annoying.

"Look, it's not about the damn chocolates, alright?" Laxus said with a frown. "It's..." Then he glanced at the celestial mage still standing there, before saying, "Look, can't we go somewhere to talk?"

"No can do," Lisanna replied with a shake of her head, holding the now half empty box back to him, as if he'd ever taint his perfect temple of a body with disgusting sugary nothingness (which, yeah, he would if Mira baked him something super nice smelling, but that wasn't the point).

"What do you mean? Lisanna-"

"I wanna help you, Laxus," she assured the man. "You know that. I'm you and Mira's number one fan. I like you two together more than I like my own relationship."

"You don't," he grumbled, "have a relationship."

"That's my exact point."

Growl. "Lisanna-"

"I promised Lucy here," she began, nodding at the woman, "that I would take her out to lunch. Just the two of us. Do you know how rare it is that both of us aren't being bogged down by Natsu, Happy, or Elfman?"

"Not Elfman, for me," Lucy felt the need to speak up. When Laxus turned his dark gaze on her, she smiled sheepishly before saying, "But, uh, that's not important, so… You and Laxus can go out, Lisanna, and I can-"

"No, no." She shook her head. "I promised to go out to eat with you and I'm going to."

"Really, it's-"

"Fine!" Laxus was growing more and more annoyed. Shoving then the box of chocolates and flowers both at Lisanna, he said, "I'll take you two morons out to lunch."

"W-What?" Lucy was in shock. "I-I don't-"

"Yay! This is great! If Laxus is treating us, Lucy, then we can eat somewhere way better than we were going to."

"What?" He was growing more and more annoyed. "Why would we eat somewhere better? We're going to where you two bozos were going to-"

"But Laxus, do you want my help or not? My price is steak."

He could have strangled Lisanna. You know, if she wasn't Lisanna.

"You just said that you liked me and Mira together more than your own relationship!"

"My own relationship doesn't exist, Laxus, so I'd like anything more than it."

"You-"

"Are you coming?"

Of freaking course.

Lucy was on edge, the whole time, even as they sat down at a steakhouse and Lisanna announced to her that Laxus would get them anything on the menu. The look in the slayer's eyes said otherwise though.

"The reason," Laxus grumbled out after they'd placed their drink orders, it not lost on the slayer that he was eating lunch with two of the people he and Mira had actually discussed before and their naivety in seeing one another as rivals rather than friends, "that I brought you here, Lisanna...and Lucy is because-"

"You called Mirajane a hypocrite. Yeah, yeah, I heard about that." Lisanna glanced over the top of her menu at her. "You fucked up."

That took Laxus out of his sour attitude. He rarely heard the youngest Strauss use such language (or any of the Strausses, really), leaving him a bit dumbfounded. As he blinked though, she continued.

"You really hurt her feelings, you know."

That bought his frown back. "I know."

Lucy, who'd also heard from Mirajane about her relationship woes (another reason she hadn't wanted to go out to eat with Laxus, fancy dinner or not), spoke without meaning to as she asked, "Why would you ever call someone a hypocrite anyways?"

The dark gaze that got out of the slayer reminded her that she was Natsu-less and therefore not safe, especially not with Laxus, and she was being a complete moron.

"I didn't," he grumbled, "mean to."

"Maybe you need less my help," Lisanna suggested, "and more learn to watch your tongue."

"L-Lisanna!" Lucy was about ready to get out of there. "Why would you-"

"I know," the slayer answered the Take Over mage, ignoring Lucy quite effectively. "I screwed up. That's not the point. The point is that I need back in with Mirajane."

"I am so glad that you came to me, Laxus," Lisanna said, "because buying me a very expensive lunch is certianly the first step in that."

"Lisanna-"

"Did you ever think about just giving it a day?" Lucy was practically cowering behind her menu at that point, but felt like that needed to be asked. "L-Laxus? And then seeing how she felt?"

"I don't wanna wait a day, you stupid-"

"Now, Lax, isn't your tongue how you got into it with my sister?" Lisanna shut her menu and shook her head at him. "You have to work on that."

Oh, he was, at the moment, working at it, as he was able to hold off on biting Lisanna's pretty little head off.

The annoying brat.

"And besides," Lisanna went on as Laxus only looked off, trying to work on his breathing. "I don't understand why you're making such a big deal out of Mirajane going to church anyways."

"Uh, because it's weird," he said with a frown. "I mean, is it not to you?"

"No," Lisanna hummed. "I mean, I don't go with her or anything, but it doesn't bother me that she does. Why does it you?"

"It doesn't."

"It clearly does."

"I just...don't get it."

"You don't have to get something to not be a jerk about-" Lucy was able to stop herself that time. And, getting to her feet, said, "I'll, uh, be in the bathroom."

Laxus glared at her as she ran off, but Lisanna only frowned with a shrug. Then it was just she and her sister's boyfriend. For a moment, the two only stared at one another before, leaning across the table, Lisanna grinned softly at the slayer.

"You know, Laxus," she said slowly, the joking in her tone forgotten, "when we were kids, back before our parents died, going to service was very important for our father. He had to pray over the garden and his work and our health, too, of course. I was really young, but I remember he'd always make Mirajane go with him. It was the only time she got to wear her really pretty dress. She liked it a lot. And Elf would go sometimes."

Laxus had never heard this, though it made sense to him in a way. He knew that the Strausses came from a tiny village and that, most villages, had a sanctuary of some sort. Something to get them through their pathetic lives, he figured. Give them hope.

But it wasn't anything he ever thought they carried into adulthood. After all, hadn't they been failed? By what they believed in? Their parents died, regardless of Lisanna's claims of their father praying otherwise. Their town turned on them, no matter how many times Mira might have frequented that sanctuary. Mirajane was forced to absorb the darkness of a demon, which not only sounded like some dang interference with her beliefs, if you asked Laxus, as well as led to said village she'd sacrificed for turning on her.

So no, Laxus didn't understand, even after what Lisanna told him that, why Mirajane would still frequent a church.

What guidance could it possibly be offering her?

As he sat there silently though, Lisanna continued.

"Then, of course, you know," she went on, "I went and did that stupid thing and nearly got myself killed."

"You aren't stupid."

She, too, was another person that Laxus wouldn't allow to get themselves down. His feelings for the Strauss sisters varied, of course, for each, but at the root were both the same. He'd been out on a job when he heard that the stupid little Strauss girl that followed around that annoying prick Dragneel had died. And it bothered him. Because…

Well, what if he'd taken that job? Instead of Mirajane? It was an S-Class job and he totally could have handled it. He'd even seen it! Up on the board! But snatched up another instead, leaving Mirajane to take that one and lead her younger sister into an unsuspecting death march.

He never told anybody, but it was one of the reasons that he wanted to become guild master, over Makarov. It was his decision to allow non-S-Class to accompany the real elites out into battle. Laxus wouldn't have done that. He wouldn't even allow fucking Lisanna to join his guild in the first place. She wasn't...strong enough. And even if somehow she did manage to get access to Laxus' Fairy Tail, she would never have been out on a job that she was so completely inept for.

Never.

Lisanna nodded a bit at the man, when he said this, and her eyes weren't right on him any longer, but rather focused on another point as she thought of all the outcomes that could have occurred and the thankful ones that had.

Softly, she said, "Regardless, Mira thought I was dead. Elfman thought that he...that he killed me. And…" Laughing then, though it was more out of relief in that this hadn't been the case than out of any humor in the situation, she said, "You guys were there for them, I bet, but Mira told me that it was when they went to have a funeral for me and she went… She hadn't been in a church since the one that we had, back in our village and… She went to the one in Magnolia and asked to hold a service for me, even though they didn't have a body. And they let her. Even worked with her on getting, you know, all the payments for it and stuff 'cause, you know, Mira didn't take another job for years and it was a few months before she started tending the bar. So...she started going again and it helped her, Laxus, a lot. She was so angry… Even before I..."

"I didn't know that you were..." Laxus cleared his throat, looking off once more. "I mean, I was out, when you died and they buried you and shit. I just always assumed your grave was in the city cemetery. It was on...church grounds?"

"Mmmhmm. That's where our parents are, back in our village. Or they were, at least." Lisanna shrugged a bit. "I guess maybe since they thought that Mira was some sort of satanist, they dug them up and… But I don't wanna think about…"

Shit.

He'd called her a satanist too.

He really was a pretty crummy boyfriend.

"I thought...you know, that Gramps was the one that..." Laxus coughed into his head, unbelievably uncomfortable then. When was the blonde one getting back? Or the damn waiter to get their order? "Mirajane always says that he's the one that helped her get over...you know, you..."

"He did." Lisanna nodded her head. "A lot, I bet. But the church helped a bunch too. I bet it made her feel loser to them."

"Them?"

"Our parents, Laxus."

"Oh." Yeah, he was afraid of that. "I guess it would."

"You know that Mirajane will forgive you though, right?" Lisanna cocked her head to the side then. "I mean, even if you didn't take me out to lunch, which I'll definitely be telling her about to get you brownie points, she'd have done it. She knows that you don't apologize."

"I did apologize," he muttered. "The flowers? The chocolate?"

"Was it accompanied by any words of remorse?"

"What?"

"Did you say that you were sorry, Laxus?"

He frowned. "Actions speak louder than words."

"Not always." Lisanna sat to attention as she saw Lucy tentatively returning. She'd summoned Plue, who was resting in her arms, no doubt hoping he'd bring her some strength to face the horrors that were a pissed off Laxus Dreyar. Before she got there though, the youngest Strauss added, "My sister's never been this serious about a guy before, Laxus. So...this isn't going to end anything. For her. But if it's going to be a problem for you, then maybe it's less Mirajane you need to focus on and more of yourself?"

Lucy was back then, truly, and stood at the end of the table, as if waiting to see if Laxus would growl at her or something again. Instead, he didn't even look at the woman or her dog. Only stood, reaching with one hand into his pocket and with the other to rest it on Lisanna's head.

Ruffling her white locks, he grumbled out something about how he'd have the restaurant charge his bank for their bill and that he'd see both of them around. Lisanna was grinning and Lucy, a bit bemused, only watched as, after ruffling her hair, the man left them alone, to eat their meal in peace. Lisanna, enthused over this, presented Lucy with the flowers he'd left behind and kept the chocolates for herself.

As far as a non-Natsu day had gone for the two of them, it had been pretty stellar!

Laxus didn't go back to the hall to get Mirajane. Not immediately. He knew she'd still be too pissy to talk to.

Rather, he waited until closing, coming in to find Kinana behind the bar, dusting things off. She was just about to say without glancing up that they were closed before she noticed who it was.

"M-Master is in the back, in his office," she told the slayer, pointing one way. Then, pointing the other, she added, "And Mirajane is in the pool area, wiping down everything. Did you- Oh, okay, just go on and see Mira then."

Oh, he was.

He found her mopping up around the pool. Her back was to the door when he came into the area and she had on her headphones. Still, she froze the second he came in, even though she didn't see or hear his entrance.

Because she felt it.

She would know the feeling of his magic anywhere.

"I do not," she said without turning, "require an escort tonight. I would be pleased if you-"

"I'm sorry, Mira." Laxus' mouth felt dry, just from having to saying those word. "About.."

She'd paused, but was at least looking over her shoulder at him then, waiting. "About?"

At her prompt, he swallowed thickly before saying, "About… I don't get it. And I'm not going to be able to get it. I don't… But I shouldn't be a dick to you about something that means so much to you. Even if it means so little to me."

Her smile was soft then, over her shoulder at him, and with a nod of her head, she turned back around before whispering, "Thank you. It's alright. I know these things are hard on you."

Laxus thought though that this would be a cure all. That he would immediately feel better. But his stomach was still clinched and…

Just like before, the words tumbled out.

"Why did you never tell me? That you...found yourself or whatever, in church? Or whatever it is that you did? Why do you always say that Makarov-"

"What are you talking-"

"And why didn't you ever ask me to go?"

Things echoed, a bit, in the pool room, and for a moment they both just allowed that to reverberate around the room before slowly Mira turned fully to face him, dropping the mop with a bit of a clank.

"Why would I have?"

"I don't..." Laxus looked off, scratching at his head. "I don't know. I just… If you think that you're being saved by going, then don't you think I'm being damned? So how can you just let me be damned, Mira?"

"I'm don't think you're...damned, Laxus." She was thoroughly baffled then. "Do you?"

"I don't...know. Am I? I mean, obviously if you have some sort of evil spirit in you, then at least something out there is made to combat it, right? Something...good? Or godly? But I don't believe in it. I haven't seen it. I don't… How can you expect me to believe in something that I can't even see?"

"I don't expect you to believe anything, Laxus." She was coming closer then, to him, and when she was within reach, she held out a hand to rest on one of his arms. "But I know that you do."

"I don't in your...church, Mira. And you're not going to fool me into thinking that I do."

"I know you don't. That's not what I was saying."

"Then-"

"You just said," she told him with a bit of a smile as she stared up at hi, "that you know there's bad and that there must be good, but you've never seen it and that you don't' believe in it. But I don't think that's true."

"What are you-"

"You don't have to believe in a god or gods or some sort of other worldly power to believe in good," she told him as she ran her hand down his arm until she got to his own hand, which she dropped hers into, him closing his around it as he continued to stare down at her. "And you believe in good. You have to. That's what you fight for it so much, to uphold it. It might not always win every battle, but you want it to. And you try your hardest to make sure that any that you're involved in, it does. Because you have faith that...that it'll all turn out okay. Even when it doesn't, for you or for me or for us, it will for someone else. Because you have faith in what's right and good and just. And that's a very, very big part of everything."

Shaking his head a bit, the man only said, "Why did you never ask me to go with you?"

"Because I didn't wanna pressure you into doing something you didn't want to do. The same reason I don't make Elf or Lisanna join me. Or talk about it to people. That's all." Her hand was very cold in his and Laxus hoped that he was succeeding in warming it up some. "I don't think you're damned, Laxus. I think you're fine. Maybe not saved, but not damned. They're not polar opposites to me."

But they were to him. Since he was a kid. And, softly, he told her, "My mother… We used to do that shit. Go to… But Ivan didn't like it. And they used to argue over it. And when she died… I mean, I was left with him. If any of what you believe is real, how could I possibly be left with him? Wouldn't that mean that your...good wanted me to turn out bad?"

Shaking her head a bit, Mirajane said, "It might sound hallow now, but when I lost Lisanna and had to come to terms with it, I felt like that. But then, with, yes, your grandfather's help and the guild in general and, of course, my brother, I felt better. But especially because I found something to believe in again. And that's what worked for me. You got over your mother in your own way. And that's fine. I just know that this is right for me. And swore a thousand times, if Lisanna would just come back to me, I'd never fall away again. So now..."

Mira trailed off and Laxus thought about informing her that just because she got _her_ Lisanna back, there was still another Mirajane missing her own who probably prayed just as hard over it. That it was pure chance that the two events coincided and saved their Lisanna's life. That Laxus had said the same prayers, perhaps even more than her, and his mother was still gone. That Lisanna, Elfman, and Mirajane probably all said the same about their parents and they still had vanished.

But he didn't.

He held his tongue.

Because...if it made Mirajane better to feel that way, what business of it was his to ruin it for her? When she never once would go out of her way to make him feel the same way about what little good he, apparently, did believe in?

It wasn't just some...odd, silly quirk about Mira. Not to her. It was serious. To her it was...deep. It ran deep in her, rather, what she believed in. To belittle that wasn't only wrong, but wasn't good.

And Laxus believed in good.

Above all else, he believed in what he felt. And he felt something, with Mirajane. When he was looking out for Lisanna. Even when he was forced to hang around Elfman.

The Strausses wanted him, in their little family.

There was no way in hell he was ever messing that up.

* * *

 **Bleh. A pipe burst where I'm staying from the cold last night, so I spent the day dealing with that (and still have no running water), so I wasn't able to finish this up to get it posted this morning, but here it is now.**

 **The prompt was Faith and I'm sure that it wasn't referring too where I took it. I'm sure the Faith was supposed to be what was felt between Mira and Laxus in one another, but when I hear that word, it only means one thing to me. And, headcanon time, but I don't wholly find it without the source material that Mira in this isn't somewhat canon.**

 **Hear me out. Like I said in the fic, they did grow up in a tiny village. And most villages have some sort of belief system. And we've already seen what a big influence the church has on Fiore. It's tied in with the crown and, though corrupted during that Starry Night timeline, clearly means something to at least a big group of people in Fiore.**

 **Why do I think it means a lot to Mirajane? Well, other than the village thing, the place she buried Lisanna seemed to be a church graveyard. And I swear after Lisanna returns from Edolas, there's a little scene where she's talking to her siblings about how they either need to remove her grave because the church is asking them to or keep paying dues or something for it being there, which prompts Natsu and Happy to remark something about how they should tear down their shrine to Lisanna and Lisanna gets offended a bit. This is either in the subbed or dubbed, but not in the other (can't remember which) and is replaced by a different interaction for whatever reason during that scene.**

 **This is important to me because, which churches frequently have graveyards and, in a tiny village, it might be the only graveyard, Magnolia is sprawling. No way _everyone_ is buried in the church's graveyard. And Lucy's father, when we go to see his headstone, doesn't appear to me to be in a church cemetery, but rather a probably city or providence owned one. Even if it's another city than Magnolia, that's pretty telling that church's aren't the only places for people to be buried in the media we've been given?**

 **So why would Mirajane and Elfman, two underage teens at the time, want this sister's grave, without even a body, to be in a church cemetery? Other than being at least somewhat religious, I don't know. I'm also not even sure any of what I just took up three paragraphs to say is anything more than me projecting onto a media what isn't that.**

 **Still something I've always thought and believed, about the Strausses and mentioned in passing, so I'm glad to have been able to put it into a fic, finally. And if you actually read this entire author note, congrats to you. I'll definitely never write one this long again (hopefully), but thought I should explain myself a bit in this.**


End file.
